Lance Stroll Believes Kubica can “Help Us Go in The Right Direction”

Lance Stroll says Robert Kubica‘s reserve and development driver role will be valuable asset for the team in 2018.

The Williams Martini Racing driver will race alongside new Russian driver Sergey Sirotkin, who both form the youngest driver line-up in the team’s history.

Kubica, a former Grand Prix winner, was in contention for a seat at Williams in an aim to make a comeback into the sport having been out for six years due to a rally accident. The Grove-based team hired Kubica on as a reserve and development driver with three free practice one appearances expected to be made for the Polish driver over the course of 2018.

Speaking to F1i.com, Stroll believes the hiring of Kubica will help Williams’ development thanks to his experience in the sport.

“It’s great for us and great for the team,” says Stroll.

“Robert has a tremendous amount of experience in Formula 1 and can really help us go in the right direction with correlation between the simulator and the car.

“Doing a couple of FP1s, I really believe it can help,”

“The fact that he’s driven so many great F1 cars, he’s competed with some really good teams, he can give us some good knowledge, it will definitely help us because it’s going to be a very competitive year.”

The Grove-based team will use Kubica in three free practice one appearances including work with the simulator, which the Pole considers are important.

“In current regulations F1 testing is very limited,” said Kubica.

“The simulator plays a very important role. Because I’m part of this kind of project it is important for me to build up a relationship in reality and simulator in order to use this tool as best as we can in the future.”

Entering his second season in F1, Stroll is looking to putting the knowledge he learned from his rookie year to good use.

“Ahead of every new season there is a lot of anticipation and unanswered questions and this makes it even more exciting,” Stroll continued.

“With a season under my belt with the team, I can’t wait to get back on track and see what the new car is like.

“Until we are on track we will not know what the competition has been doing, but I am very excited and optimistic about the car the team has built.

“Last year was a steep learning curve for me and now I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store.”